Hafen
For the city in Gallia this vehicle is named after, see Hafen (city). The Hafen is the primary tank of Squad E in ''Valkyria Chronicles 4'', and appears in any mission featuring Claude Wallace where he is not a Scout. It is the most powerful of the three armoured vehicles the player has access to. It starts out as a medium tank, but can be upgraded into an even more powerful heavy tank later on in the game. Profile An offshoot model of a Vinland-made medium tank known as the "Minute." Squad E's version has been modified to Miles's sic specifications. It was then named the Hafen, after Claude's home town in the Principality of Gallia. Cannon rounds are stored on the side of the tank-an artifact of its outdated design. In some cases, enemy fire would ignite the rounds, causing explosions. The Hafen's modifications account for this design flaw, fortifying the tank's sides with denser armor plating. Role in EWII Precisely when Claude acquired the Hafen and when Miles modified it is not clear, but by the time of the Imperial invasion it was already very different to a standard Federation Tank, mounting a conformal gun mantlet similar to that of the Edelweiss as well as additional side armour. Technical Information Body specs: Action Points: 450, 500 when "Heavy Tank Body" is purchased. Hafen has no AP upgrade Parts, though a couple of decals offer very minor AP boosts: none greater than 10. Parts grid: 4x4, increases to''' 5x5 when Heavy Tank Body is purchased. Armament: See Tank Upgrades (VC4) for these upgrades in purchase order. Range Upgrades Main gun Mortar Machine Gun Fully upgrading the Hafen's body and gun costs 719,700 . It also requires 8,000 Renown points to be spent in the Infirmary post-game to unlock the highest-tier upgrades. Captainless Squad DLC * '''Body hitpoints: 6500 * Action points: 450 * Body defence: 600 (armor-grade steel) This is an enemy-only version that is fought in the 3rd battle of the DLC. Gameplay The Hafen is the equivalent of the Edelweiss in the first game, being a slow, hard-hitting and tough vehicle best suited to duelling with other tanks and breaking through enemy fortifications to create openings for the squad's infantry. It is usually deployed automatically in any mission where it can be used, so unlike the Cactus and Glory, there is no trade-off involved in having it around. Unlike that incarnation of the Edelweiss, Hafen only costs a single Command Point to control: it also has slightly higher AP than its Gallian counterpart. As is typical for Valkyria Chronicles tanks, Hafen has three main weapons: the first is the primary gun, a long-range weapon of slightly questionable accuracy which delivers enormous damage to vehicles and can kill infantry too if it manages to hit them. New to Valkyria Chronicles 4 is the ability for the Hafen to launch Co-Op Attacks with its main gun: it can Co-Op fire with the DLC Edelweiss and the Glory as long as the latter is using its anti-armour turret, and with allied Lancers as well. Forming a "firing squad" of Lancers around the Hafen allows an enormous amount of anti-tank damage to be delivered for a single Command Point. Hafen's mortar exists at the halfway point between a Mortar-Lance and the new Mortars used by Grenadiers. The blast is gigantic and the damage sufficient to instantly kill even most types of Paragon infantry when fully upgraded. It is very good at digging enemies out of sandbag fortifications: even if they survive the blast, the sandbags themselves will be destroyed. It is, however, almost completely ineffectual against enemy Lancers due to the Blast Suits they wear, and can do little more than make them stand up out of cover. Smoke mortar rounds have been changed from just something the tank does to an optional Part that can be developed after Chapter 8 Part 1: this is a fairly hefty 3x2 block, and only gives one round per turn (which cannot be reloaded even by Engineers or Orders), even if the player has fitted Parts to increase the Hafen's ammo supply. The only way to get more than one shot in a turn is to use the Ship Order Emergency Fix after the Hafen is destroyed: it will return with a smoke round even if it has already fired one. The smoke rounds produce a dense cloud of smoke that blocks vision in both directions, meaning units in the cloud will not fire interception fire and will not have it fired at them, and forces units inside it to treat all attacks as Surprise Attacks. It lasts until the start of the player's next turn, but will dissipate immediately if any explosive weapon (Lances, grenades, mortars, etc) is detonated within the radius of the cloud. Hafen's machine gun, while hardly a show-stopper, is comparable to a Brown-series Scout rifle in terms of damage output, and quite capable of killing all types of Imperial troops with a close-range headshot. The Hafen has the largest Parts grid of the three vehicles, and has Parts for upgrading its Critical Defence (called "Resistance" in VC4), Accuracy, ammunition and Body HP, as well as the aforementioned Part for smoke mortar rounds. It does not have any parts that upgrade its Action Points. The Hafen's radiator is much more vulnerable than the Edelweiss': rather than being mounted low on a sloped backplate and protected from the sides by the tracks, it is mounted high on a flat backplate and completely exposed at the sides. This means the old tactic of preventing critical shots by jamming the back of the tank up against a wall or other object is much more likely to backfire. If the Hafen is destroyed, assuming its destruction is not a mission failure condition, Claude will be "forced to retreat." This prevents the use of all Orders except one, if it has been unlocked: this is the Ship Order "Emergency Fix," which can be used to redeploy destroyed vehicles. Trivia * Presumably when the Glossary entry talks about ammunition being stored "on the side of the tank," it is referring to the ammunition being stowed in the sponsons (the structures extending from the sides of the hull above the tracks). This was a major issue with early Sherman variants, which only had 1.5 inches (38mm) of plating protecting unarmoured, "dry" ammunition racks in their sponsons. These would almost always ignite when hit, a tendency incorrectly credited to the Sherman's use of gasoline instead of diesel as fuel. Later Shermans remedied this by adding an extra inch-thick layer of applique armour to the sponsons (much as Miles is said to have done) and later switched to "wet" ammunition stowage where the rounds were surrounded by a fire-suppressant liquid layer designed to prevent ignition. * The DLC Edelweiss scales its stats to the Hafen's upgrades rather than having upgrades of its own. * The Hafen's modifications allow it to have the highest critical defense (called "Resistance" in VC4) of any tank in the series. Hafen's critical hit multiplier maxes out at 1 like the Edelweiss, but with the sticker that grants an additional +50 resistance, the result will be shots to the radiator dealing half as much damage as shots to the body. * As with the normal Federate Tank, the Hafen is based on an M4 Sherman, with the large raised drive sprockets seemingly referenced from a tankette. When upgraded, the Hafen's turret is switched for one more closely resembling a mirrored M26 Pershing turret (commander's hatch on the left instead of the right), and the hull becomes the upper hull of a Pershing on the lower hull of a Sherman. * Hafen gains side skirts as it is upgrades, but since there is no tread hit location in VC4 these are purely cosmetic. They also do not increase the size of the tank's collision box. Category:Tanks Category:Squad E Category:Atlantic Federation